Pyewacket continues her winning way

It was a day to be lucky or good when fair winds deserted the inaugural First Team Real Estate Invitational Regatta on day two of the big boat inshore Saturday.

Roy Disney's
Pyewacket continued its roll in the only race managed, and that was shortened from two laps to one when starting winds of six knots faded to three and forced the race committee to call it a day. The hope is for enough breeze Sunday to sail the last three of five scheduled races, but the unusual high-pressure system that has brought seaside temperatures into the 70s and 80s to Southern California makes that problematical.

Not everyone was complaining. Ed McDowell, a veteran of the ULDB 70 sleds' glory days, sailed his 19 year old Santa Cruz 70
Grand Illusion into first place in Class B with the fourth fastest elapsed time of the day - only 8 minutes 10 seconds behind Randall Pittman's Class 1
Genuine Risk, a Dubois 90 - and corrected out with handicap time second only to
Pyewacket by 14 seconds. "We were a little lucky," McDowell said.

Andy Rose, tactician for helmsman Craig Fletcher on Lewis Beery's 1D48
It's OK didn't exactly say that after trouncing the Class 3 fleet with an ET of 1:36:18 for the six-mile race that was faster than all but four of the nine larger boats in Class 2.

Rose, a Newport Beach sailing veteran, said the secret was to "start at the committee boat [end of the line] and go west, young man," noting that the better breeze - what there was of it - was on that side of the course. "Newport Beach has will never be known as the big wind capital of the world. It was pretty awful downwind, but you gotta keep the boat going. We just kept hitting Fletcher in the head."

Doug Baker's
Magnitude 80 was another beneficiary of that line of thinking, also gybing to the west side to finish four minutes behind Pyewacket and five minutes in front of the faster-rated
Genuine Risk, which sailed into oblivion to the east. "We had a couple of local guys [Alan Andrews and Keith Kilpatrick] who beat up the tactician [Ernie Richau] to get us to that side," Baker side.

Then, when the wind shifted sharply from southwest to south, they gybed straight for the finish line - not with a spinnaker but a Code Zero oversize headsail.

Earlier, that sail got bowman Jimmy Slaughter into trouble at the windward mark as the furling sail was being rolled up into its head foil. It caught Slaughter's sleeve but tore his shirt and freed him before sucking him into the wrap.

McDowell's boat has no such high-tech gear, but the tactics worked the same. "When the wind went south it put us downwind right into the finish," he said. "We'd like to say we predicted that shift."

Meanwhile,
Genuine Risk was struggling. After a poor start that left it no choice but to follow Pyewacket to the west side, the afterguard - veteran Dave Ullman, who grew up in these waters, and Bill Hardesty, who led San Diego Yacht Club's Lipton Cup victory here last weekend - elected to go east for the downwind leg rather than simply stay in their rival's wake. "We looked good for a while, but when the wind dropped it put us in a hard place," Hardesty said. "It was just a very tricky day. We've got to put the pieces of our puzzle together."

First Team Real Estate is the title sponsor, playing a key role in the event preparation and sponsorship support. Silver Sponsors include Bank of America, Daily Pilot, Hewitt, LNR Property Corporation, Mellon, Merrill Lynch, MKA Capital and PIMCO.

In 2004, First Team Real Estate established the First in Our Hearts Foundation as a company wide philanthropy created to maximize the charitable efforts that have been an integral part of the company since its founding almost 30 years ago. Because their work brings them so close to homes, families, and neighborhoods, the tradition of giving back to the community runs deep among the sales associates and employees at First Team. Now, through the focused efforts of the First in Our Hearts Foundation their impact is greater than ever. And, in its inaugural year the Foundation is proud to announce its two-year commitment in support of Hoag Heart and Vascular Institute.